Color Tinting In Silent Movies

Color Tinting In Silent Movies

I was thinking of my Image DVD for THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and how it's color tinted throughout. I've never been much of a fan of color tinting in silent movies, and I guess what I'm trying to find out is -- is there a way to KNOW whether or not a tinted silent movie is being presented as originally intended? Or is it just a new method of trying to boost it? In cases where silents were shown color tinted back in their time, was this always the case for those films?

It's hard to word this exactly how I mean it, but I'm trying to gauge whether or not there is one , true, intended manner of showing some of these movies, or not? While watching parts of some of the Lon Chaney films on TCM's marathon today, I noticed none of them were anything other than black and white. Are there tinted prints of movies like TELL IT TO THE MARINES and MOCKERY (for instance)? When it comes to THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, is there one, absolute, perfect, intended way to see that particular movie? Was it ever shown in the 1920s in all- b&w (except for the color ball scene)?

Is there such a thing as the "correct intended way" for these movies? Or is it all carte blanche?

Good question, Joe. I always thought all silents were b&w but learned later they weren't. What was the process to tint? On hand-coloured scenes did the studio hand-colour one hundred prints (or whatever- that would be so much work) or was the colour reserved for the big city showings like LA, NY etc. Maybe period reviews would have info on tinted or not, or studio records or some of the boards experts might know.

Even when a silent movie WAS released tinted, the current versions on DVDs are so exaggerated it becomes ridiculous. I have a French DVD of NOSFERATU with the title hideously tinted in salad green fluo. I have seen authentic old 35mm prints shown in theaters and the colors are never so aggressive. In their DVD versions the tinting is more a handicap than everything else.

Color tinting was going on in the 1890s so it's certainly nothing new or just done towards the end of the silent era. Of course, it got a lot better in terms of quality. Actually tinting was done for Griffith's INTOLERANCE after a spotlight hit the screen and the director was impressed with the visual (from what I've read).

Tinting often looks tacky on video. Unless there's a lot of day for night photography, as with Nosferatu, I prefer silents in black and white. Of course, if the right filters were used at the time of production, as was the case with some later silents, even day for night scenes can look fine without tinting.

The Kino DVD of Sjostrom's Terje Vigen (A Man There Was) is made unwatchable by tinting overkill. Contrast is totally flattened and highlights are buried. I think the tinting was done by the archive that restored the film. If that's the case, maybe it looks better on film.

Jack Theakston would have the technical details about shooting stock and printing stock but it was not uncommon for silent films to be tinted or toned. Certain colors became associated with certain effects such as blue for night shots. Ever notice how the earliest silents always seemed to shoot in broad daylight, day for night? These made more sense when seen tinted blue. A yellow tint often accompanied daylight scenes, sepia for indoor, red during battle scenes and green for horror (I have a nice PHANTOM OF THE OPERA print that uses many colors in this manner). These were not rules set in stone so you could see these colors used for other effects. Tinted film stock was produced to print on but this meant that every print had to be assembled from the various color sections. One tone throughout, such as I've seen with BROKEN BLOSSOMS and some other silents, worked well. I'm sure that with many silents there was a very specific use of color in various scenes but whether DVD manufacturers adhere to these original tints is another matter.

Scenes that involved multi-colors as seen in some early Edison, Melies, French Pathe, and other films required the use of stencils to keep the color "between the lines." Even so, you can sometimes see that the color does not always fill the space or sometimes bleeds over the line. Painstaking work and often quite beautiful. Some prints of THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY have the gunshots (the smoke), including the final shot pointed at the audience (sometimes re-edited so as to be the first shot) hand tinted.

I might add that many (maybe most?) "tinted" silent films on video aren't tinted in the same manner as the silent days. Many video tints bathe the entire picture in a particular color without any white highlights. This can be overkill and damaging to picture quality.

Very interesting. Last night I watched a lot of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA on TCM and I actually liked the color tinting there. It did feel more subdued or something. I'm going to address this over in a separate PHANTOM thread... I want to figure something out once and for all about this movie...

By the way, I do enjoy the blue tints to simulate "night" in the silent movies.

There were several methods for tinting and toning silent films. Some methods tinted scenes a single color, others used multiple baths to give a different color to highlights than the shadows. There were various stencil and stamp methods that got more specific, and many actual color photography methods.

Flicker Alley put out an amazing two-disk set that explains in fascinating detail the various methods of early film color and tinting, and early sound methods. the disks have great visual examples of how films were given color, clips of films that these methods were used on, and in some cases complete films. They do a brilliant job of keeping a potentially dry topic, entertaining and thoroughly informative. I can't recommend it enough, if you can't buy it, check your library.

<< Is there such a thing as the "correct intended way" for these movies? >>

I think I recall reading that the cutting continuity for a film often provided the instructions for color tinting. So if such a document still exists for a given movie, you stand a pretty good chance of knowing what the director's intentions were.

Tinting and toning seemed to be lot more prevalent in pre-1925 films although the practice continued even into the sound era. It's a simple practice, but the results can be oh, so pleasing.

todmichel wrote:Even when a silent movie WAS released tinted, the current versions on DVDs are so exaggerated it becomes ridiculous. I have a French DVD of NOSFERATU with the title hideously tinted in salad green fluo. I have seen authentic old 35mm prints shown in theaters and the colors are never so aggressive. In their DVD versions the tinting is more a handicap than everything else.

Tinting fades over time so you can't go by what the originals look like now.

sthorntn wrote:<< Is there such a thing as the "correct intended way" for these movies? >>

I think I recall reading that the cutting continuity for a film often provided the instructions for color tinting.

I know that's the case with 1929's Mysterious Island (well, it describes scene-by-scene the color sequences, the b&w sequences and to-the-point, the tinted sequences).

For the really curious, the Library of Congress has some continuities in their copyright records. But that pretty much varies by studio. Some studios filed continuities; some press material; some a synopsis. I kinda recall an old, old alt.movies.silent post where somebody laid out which studio had what policy but I don't have that handy.

Steve

"It can boast of truly dramatic moments, and these moments come in such logical regularity and are so brim-full of natural action and depict, so
realisticly, vital moments in the every-day lives of the present generation, that from the flash of the initial title to the familiar monosyllabic notice
'End', there is not a moment given any, excepting those whose business it is to look for defects, to debate with him or herself, whether or no the
picture should be adversely criticized for presenting for discussion on the screen such a wholly improbable subject."

The tinting on the Brownlow restoration of PHANTOM seems to have been from one of the preview cuts, if you look at documentation from the period. Shepard's version seems to have gotten it right in relation to the general release version (amber, yellow, red, blue tone/light amber tint, blue tint, and green). If you look at the original Show-At-Home prints, you can see where the splices for each color stock change went.

A common mistake I see on video transfers (other than the hideously amped up color) is that some companies can't seem to get it right re: tinting vs. toning. Tinting is tantamount to putting a colored gel in front of the projector—everything white is colored. Toning means running the black and white film through a chemical bath so that all of the dark areas are turned a color, and the highlights stay white. I've seen a lot of video masters that do something that makes the film look like it was only toned, when a tint was meant to be there, or worse, some sort of hodge-podge where there are solid blacks, but only the midtones are colored and the whites remain white. This is totally wrong. When you see black on a color tint, with all of the tonalities preserved in between, it's quite striking.

By the late '20s, depending on the studio, tinting decreased greatly. Universal, Paramount, and UA (sometimes Fox) were the only studios that I'm aware of that were tinting into the sound era. MGM stopped tinting as a rule around '26, so things like MOCKERY and TELL IT TO THE MARINES went out straight black and white. Earlier tinting schemes by MGM were rudimentary (amber, blue, black and white).

I've seen a couple of instances of tinting fading, but this is generally pretty obvious. The pre-tinted stocks had the color added to the nitrate base, and do not fade. They're generally pretty subtle.

A good example of tinting is the Kino version of DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE 1920. the night scenes are light blue & there is a purple tint. By comparison the Image Version has heavy colors so obviously these are not the original tints. Its worth looking at.

I just watched the newest Kino NOSFERATU last night, and the colors were way too much - particularly the depth of the yellows. (The blue scenes were thankfully more subdued). It also struck me that colors were tossed about randomly, rather than yellow for daylight and bluish for night. It became downright distracting at times, all the alternating.

Visually, the best print I ever saw of NOSFERATU (if not the more complete) was at the Cinémathèque Française in the mid-50's (and my first viewing of this masterpiece). It was entirely in sepia, and the night scenes were just suggested by a more pronounced tone. The print was in 35mm and in very good shape.

I tried re-watching the Kino DVD of THE GOLEM, but there was a great example of colors being abused, IMO... it seemed like they were trying to nail every color out of a 64-box of Crayloa Crayons. (What was with the Pinkish toning of some shots, and what did that signify??) There was a really bright emerald green that took me right out of the thing.

And then todmichel tells us of the sepia-toned NOSFERATU which he found very satisfying. So this is what I have been trying to get at, I guess --- IS there a "right" way here, or does any scheme go?

I tried re-watching the Kino DVD of THE GOLEM, but there was a great example of colors being abused, IMO... it seemed like they were trying to nail every color out of a 64-box of Crayloa Crayons. (What was with the Pinkish toning of some shots, and what did that signify??) There was a really bright emerald green that took me right out of the thing.

And then todmichel tells us of the sepia-toned NOSFERATU which he found very satisfying. So this is what I have been trying to get at, I guess --- IS there a "right" way here, or does any scheme go?

I think part of the problem is that the dawn of silent film on DVD coincides with the emergence of computer software to easily impose color on B/W film. So on the one side we got better-looking prints, more music score options, and the reintroduction of color toning to films that had been largely transferred from B/W 16mm and 35mm prints made after tinting was no longer the practice. But, it seems like the technicians overplayed their hand in some cases. I'd argue for tinting, but at a more reasonable level, that better reflects theatrical prints in the silent era.

And then todmichel tells us of the sepia-toned NOSFERATU which he found very satisfying. So this is what I have been trying to get at, I guess --- IS there a "right" way here, or does any scheme go?

It's just gonna be down to whatever you find most pleasing and/or effective.

You must remember, it was my first viewing of the movie, not really a "choice" but the fact is that it made a lasting impression on me until this day, more than half a century later. I'm unable to tell if it was intentionnally made in sepia, or if it was just the result of an old original print - like in old photographs in family album. In this print the vampire seemed much more horrifying than in various shades of blue, red or salad green as he is shown these days.